


if our need is dire

by fictitiousregrets



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, M/M, brief discussion of early jackparse, but mostly everyone burns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictitiousregrets/pseuds/fictitiousregrets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>maybe your future's so bright, it fucking burns like a wildfire.</i>
</p>
<p>Five sad people on fire with things and people they want (or need).</p>
            </blockquote>





	if our need is dire

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i'm so sorry about this i have no idea how to write anyone!!!!!
> 
> a few things before we begin: first, the title of this fic and the bit from the summary are from Wildfire by Marianas Trench.
> 
> second, brief trigger warning for medication and anxiety? also a terrible dad!! (don't worry, not coach or bad bob)
> 
> third, i want to write lardo forever but i am so sad that i didn't get to write her like i wanted to, i hope you enjoy it anyway
> 
> thanks to ngozi for writing this beautiful dumb hockey pie comic and hurting us i enjoy pain and also suffering

 

i. parson

 

It’s like he can’t stop.

It’s like he has it all and more, and all he wants is his best friend back.

He thought it would last forever; juniors, that is. He thought it would move them like they moved on the ice, like they moved each other.

But that’s not how life works, and they were both good enough to be in the first round of picks, because Parse was #2 and Jack was #1, and they would have been apart, trades notwithstanding. Maybe it’s better this way.

This way he can go get Jack and bring him to his side where he belongs.

It all goes so, so wrong. Again. Not the first time, but this time there’s a witness in the form of a small blond, and so what? He’s some partygoer. He’s just a kid.

He thought. He just _thought_ that maybe he could get his best friend back. He burns inside like someone took the water in his body and replaced it with gasoline.

So Parse puts his hat on backwards and makes sure the spade on the front is a big “fuck you” to Zimms.

 

ii. jack

 

He didn’t know how this could happen.

How could you just lose it all in the span of a day? How could so many pills, so many pills make a person lose everything?

Sometimes Jack still thought about it. It was easier to skim over it like passing over the Aces games during those first few months.

He missed Parse sometimes, but when he talked to his therapist, she gently prodded until the truth came out in twisted, gnarled words, and his breath caught in his chest and he choked out the words he never wanted to say like they were made of embers and he had to get them out, that he never felt good enough for Kent Parson.

_What do you want from me, Kenny?_

They clasped hands, Kent threw him a smile.

_Be better._

He took the words that tore him up and made them his own, and now he had nothing to say to Parse.

 

iii. shitty

 

“Cut your damn hair.”

Shitty leveled a steady look at his father. “I think it makes me look stately, Father.”

The elder Knight only cast him a disapproving look. He sipped from a glass of whiskey and set the glass down before leaning forward. “Why law school? Why not business school? You would be a legacy.”

He didn’t call Shitty “son” like he usually did, which meant he was pissed off, which was fucking good. Shitty simmered inside, wanting to stand up and go off on a tirade. His father would deserve it. But no, he was here to make a case for funding, and as much as it pained him to do so, he had to. Harvard Law cost 55k a year, and he didn’t have that kind of money just lying around; his father did.

So instead, Shitty built his case and though his heart was on fire, he stayed calm throughout. If there was one thing Shitty knew how to do, it was prepare to argue, and argue well.

He left with his hair intact and a written agreement from his father, but his hands were shaking.

 

_lards please call_

 

The phone rang immediately.

 

iv. lardo

“Shitty?”

“I have never wanted to light up so much in my fuckin’ life, Lardo.” His voice came in a whisper from the other line, and Lardo just pushed her laptop away from her, pulling her legs in to sit cross-legged as she listened to Shitty rant quietly about his dad. He was never that quiet, so he must have just come from a meeting with his dad.

She listened to him growl curses as he left his father’s house, as he got into his car, as he laid his forehead on the steering wheel--he told her he almost honked the horn with his head--and, eventually, as he made his way back to the Haus.

With her heart and her hands on fire, she smacked his arm when he entered the Haus and said, “Way to go, Shits,” and he hugged her so tightly in response that she thought he was never going to let go. He was just going to squeeze all the air out of her. Who would manage the team after she was gone?

He let her go eventually, and she swelled a little with pride because he was always doing the impossible. _You did it, Shits_ , she thought, and then thought about her own upcoming trial. _Now it’s my turn. Damn._

 

v. bittle

 

You never understand weighty moments until after they’re gone.

Bitty waits.

He waits some more.

He pines, and he stares, and he spends night after night forcibly telling himself _it’s not going to happen, Bittle. It’s not. Will you let go already? Let go of him. He doesn’t think of you like that_.

But he’s handsome, and he’s _there_ every day, and on those rare occasions when he does smile, it’s like the new moon has gone full immediately, and lord, Bittle feels the broken parts of his heart falling off, used for kindling. Maybe that’s why he feels like he’s on fire.

He likes to hide. It’s all he can do, really--how else do you survive like this? Hiding, evading, being quick and nimble--it’s all vital to the small corner he’s cut himself for living.

God, when Jack is there, though. He wants to come out into the moonlight and bask in it. They get coffee together, Jack starts showing him his pictures, they laugh and joke and Jack chirps him and it’s incredible. Bitty’s never allowed himself to be so open before. It hurts when he goes back to his room at night and knows he can never have Jack, that this all is a poor imitation of a beautiful shimmering dream he has, but for those few shining moments, his world is brighter.

 

\+ i. jack

 

The light shines behind Bittle in the kitchen, and Jack snaps a picture. It’s like there’s a halo around him, like you’d see in those Renaissance paintings. It’s a good shot.

Jack’s signed with the Falconers, and Bittle made him a celebratory pie, which, of course, everyone in the Haus flocked to. Bittle made more, though--he knows the Haus by now, and he knows that these boys are always hungry. After congratulating Jack, they all retreated to their own parts of the Haus with pie slices on plates, leaving Jack alone with Bittle in the kitchen.

He’s talking, saying something about his mother and her book club, and Jack has a fork in his mouth with pie on his tongue, and he’s wondering if Bitty’s rear was always that pert. The squats he’d been doing all semester worked, apparently. Maybe Jack should tell Ransom he did a good job? Bittle would just get embarrassed, although… that would be fun to chirp him with.

“Jack Laurent Zimmermann, are you listening to me?” Bitty’s turned around, accusatory with a wooden spoon in his left hand and a fist on his hip.

Around a mouthful of pie, Jack says, “Yes.” Although it comes out more like “yeph”. Bittle smirks at him, and asks the dreaded question.

“Then what’d I say?”

Jack just takes another bite of pie, and points to his full mouth. It works; Bittle laughs. “What am I going to do with you, Mr. Zimmermann?” It’s less of a question and more of an amused, exasperated sigh.

 

—

 

What _was_ Bitty going to do with him, Jack wonders when he’s in Madison with the blazing sun burning his bare shoulders. He’d forgotten sunscreen; that’s what happens to unsuspecting Northerners, apparently, according to Bittle.

He’s been keeping up with the squats, it seems, and Jack can feel that familiar twinge in his chest, the kind he only felt with Ken--Parse. It’s different, though. It’s warmer. It’s not the wildfire he felt with Parse, the all-consuming hungry passion, the kind of love that leaves you burnt and blackened, completely spent. It’s careful warmth, the kind you get in a kitchen in the Northeastern United States that makes it comfortable to be around, it’s a sunny day in the dregs of autumn up North.

He’s running out of poetic things. He considers texting Shitty to ask him for some more metaphors, but he’s sure he’d just get chirped.

Still, when he sees Bitty’s smaller body jogging ahead of him on the path, his eyes are drawn a little lower than they should be, and he feels like someone blew on the softly glowing embers in his heart.

 

(+ii. parson)

  
(Maybe he can’t have Zimms, but he has everything Jack had ever wanted, and one day it’ll be enough, he hopes.)

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the halo thing i hope you'll forgive me someday, and you can go yell at me on tumblr at thesugarcookieday.tumblr.com


End file.
